Video Game Recruiting (Corporate Marines Book 1)

by Tom Germann

  He moves his hand over the sensor again and the image fades. He smiles at the viewing audience. “To be realistic, with the cost of a sensor implant today, very few would even want to spend the money for this. One day this operation will be common, but today? Not at all. However, we do have another way for people today to get the full use of the new technology for a fraction of the cost.”

  Once again, he moves his hand and another human materializes. He manipulates some buttons and a strange helmet appears over the figure’s head; it has no opening. Another button-push and the helmet becomes transparent; it can be seen that there are multiple electrodes touching the figure’s head and spine. Different colors start flashing back and forth in the helmet and the connection points. The white-coated man continues his explanation with his soothing voice. “This is a neural net helmet. A huge improvement on the old Virtual Reality technology, it takes that tech to the next level and means that those of you gamers out there are going to have the time of your life.”

  His grin is warm and encouraging. “The neural net helmet has connectors that go against the bare skin that you can see here. When the wearer closes their eyes and relaxes, the helmet will allow them to experience almost exactly what the sensor implants would let you experience in a simulation. You would be as ‘in’ the simulation as you possibly could be. For additional safety, anyone who wishes to use these systems—whether they are in a school, learning institute, gaming centre or otherwise—will be run through a quick touch-test where the system will be placed on the person and a test series will be run for about twenty seconds to make sure that your nervous system reacts correctly. The Corporation would never put individuals in harm’s way if it can help it.”

  The image of the doctor fades to black and Billy is there again. His grin is in place and has the classic cheekiness, which means that the next part is going to be good. “The Corporation would never risk the public. Now, parents or guardians that are concerned about violence levels can set the level for their charges through the system. That will be in place until the charges hit the age of seventeen. At that time the player takes over as they are of age. For everyone out there, if you want to enter the contest to win the first chance at the new system, which involves being flown in the night before, getting sized and issued Banger gear, playing with us the next day and then partying through to the next morning at which point you will be flown back to where ever you live, well, just click on the link below and that will take you to the entry. The cost is only five dollars per entry and is restricted to those aged sixteen and older. You can read the fine print and then sign up. You can enter as many times as you’d like, and we will announce the winners the week before they are coming down! Stay tuned for more information and check out these messages from our amazing sponsors!”

  Billy Banger had almost one billion views. Systems went down around the solar system with the viewer output. There were so many entries to the contest that the system, even using Glentol Corporation AIs, lagged right out. Within the first twenty-four hours over five million people had entered. Within the next week this had become one of the biggest fundraisers anywhere.

  The week before the new gaming system was to be released, the last entries were taken. The initial charity had been expanded to seven different charities, which were funded for the next decade.

  The two winners, one a twenty-four-year-old from Poland and the other a thirty-one-year-old Brazilian, became instant celebrities and were offered book and movie deals. They flew in the day before they were to game, appeared with Billy Banger dressed in Banger gear for the game and went on to party, destroying a nearby rave club that night.

  During the pre-game interview, well over a billion viewers tuned in and also caught some highlights of the gaming. That evening, two videos were released, showing the action from different viewpoints. Sales skyrocketed and the Corporation, which had sponsored the entire event, had paid off all the hardware updates as well as most of the software development.

  Every gaming centre had modified their previous VR rooms into lounges. Gamers came in, sat down with the helmet and sensor net on, and reclined. Since there was no need to move around, each room was able to hold fourteen people at one time. The cost to play for ten minutes had only increased a bit and every centre was booked solid for the next two months. After that, some openings were available.

  I was in my third year of university when the announcement came out about the new simulations. I had just finished my final exams and had some spare time. I’d kept working out and “looking after myself,” like my mom called it. I looked good. I knew that for a fact as I never had any problems picking up hot women on the dance floor at any of the wild parties that I went to regularly.

  I didn’t have a permanent or serious girlfriend, though. It wasn’t that I was working the field; I just didn’t meet anyone that was interesting enough for anything permanent.

  I had good solid grades in my business courses and did well at all of them. Finance, Statistics, Marketing, Social Integrations, Humanology, Business Leadership. Whatever I took, I could just do. I hadn’t chosen to specialize in anything yet and was not completely sure what I wanted to do after school. I was going to graduate in a year. Maybe two, if I extended my time in for some reason. I had been to career fairs at the end of last year and I had seen some interesting companies, but wasn’t even sure where to apply. I had thought about going to the Glentol Corporation but wasn’t sure that they would have me. I did like some of the smaller companies (I mean, everything is smaller than Glentol, which is across the solar system and even in deep space).

  I just didn’t know.

  I did know that I hadn’t been to a sim game for a long time, but I was going to be late if I didn’t move now. Jeff and Steve were in different parts of the country and we used to play more in the first two years of university, but this year had been harder. I found myself thinking of Tina more and my workload had been heavier.

  Tina hadn’t gotten ahold of the old crew. Her parents were still living down the street from mine and I saw them regularly when I was around. They had fixed up the house and were still quietly working away. I understood that Tina was sending money home. A lot of money. I was glad for her family. They had worked hard and they had lost their daughter.

  She wasn’t dead; she was just somewhere far away, unable to contact her parents or friends. It happened if people were working on secure projects. I couldn’t figure out why Tina, who was as young as she was, would be involved in something so tight on security, but she was.

  Her father had recovered nicely and was working fewer hours. Her mom had also cut back on the hours and they still ran the biggest barbeque in the area every summer for the local kids. I stopped by and helped out. It was a good time and helped keep me positive when everything else seemed to be dragging me down.

  Thankfully, the gaming centre was just down the road a few blocks over in a mega mall. There was talk about putting a second centre in ‘cause they were so popular, but nothing had happened yet. Some of those gaming releases weren’t that often, and lately the quality, while good, wasn’t as cutting-edge as it had been before. The only people really complaining were the die-hard gamers who knew every element of it. I just happened to be one of them and I kept catching mistakes and glitches.

  I showed up at the gaming centre just before we were supposed to start and swiped my chip. The thirty-five dollars was cleared from my account and I stepped in where the attendant handed me my helmet and sensor net.

  I popped it over my T-shirt and put my gamer towel on the gaming chair. I sat down and reclined my chair, closing my eyes and sinking into the game. The armour room started to form around me and the sim came fully online. There had been several software upgrades in the last few months and I was guessing that this would have really improved gameplay. Time to see what they had for me.

  Analyzing data. Subject Timothy Labaron is heading in-game.
Subject member is twenty-one years old today and in third year of university for Business. Subject member, while not considered too old for Marine evaluation, is toward the upper age limit.

  Activating secondary evaluation routines. Loading subject’s data and analyzing using Corporate criteria “future needs.” Subject Timothy has always shown strong characteristics desired by the Corporation. Executing Easy mode. Beginning evaluation.

  When I loaded, I set the realism levels for myself at the highest level possible. The images would be super clear and there were no parental controls in place. I had heard that some people complain about combat stress after, but I wanted to try it once and see what it was like.

  We are coming in on an assault lander. This is one of the awesome upgrades. A shuttle looks like a space plane and takes a while to actually land, so that part of the game is always accelerated and weird. This is a full assault lander. Teardrop-shaped with lots of armour, big engines and pop-out weapons.

  This is a stripped-down ship meant to get to the planet’s surface fast and get you out fast as well. The armour acts as a pressure suit so we don’t explode, given the Gs we are pulling. My mind tells me this is like the biggest roller coaster in the world, or maybe an elevator that is just falling from the top of a tall skyscraper. But the feeling goes on and on. Jeff and Steve are with me and I know Steve has dialled his level down so he does not feel as much. He was never a great player.

  The mission is a smash-and-grab raid on an alien-held planet that has killer robots and is sort of at war with humanity. The briefing on the way down is fast as we read up on it while waiting to go in.

  Land, blow through the defences at the military outpost, breach the command bunker, grab the AI’s data, and then make it back to the lander. Most of the military is off on exercise so whatever is left behind will actually be paying attention and likely see us that much faster. But the majority of the military is out of the area and will take up to fifteen minutes to get back in range for the long-reach stuff.

  Our problem will be how long it takes them to identify us on the way in. We are landing right by the inner fortress wall and will blow right through, so we could be done in two minutes and out.

  The upgrade brief means that the game is even more realistic than before. Now when you do a magazine change or reload, you have to be carrying spare magazines. You also have to reach to the right pouch. The image of gamers scrabbling at the same pouch and getting blown away is pretty common right now and happens all the time with the newbies. You can actually set the game to override that so you always draw from the same pouch, but that’s not how I’m playing.

  Picking your load is even more important now. The armour acts as a strength multiplier for us, as it would in the real world. But, you still need to be fit to get through this as it feels like your body is actually working, even though you are just sitting there in a chair.

  We have a couple seconds left. I am attached by quick-release links to the lander so I am not on internal batteries yet. I can feel the armour pressing down on my shoulders and I know that the real Corporate Marines have it harder than I do in this game, but I wonder how they get through this. All the gear I am carrying weighs a lot.

  My stomach starts lurching as the retro rockets kick in. The timer shows three seconds. Then they fully come on and I almost puke. It’s way too realistic.

  We hit the ground hard and I can hear metal clanging as the upper hatches open and the weapon systems engage. There are some huge explosions nearby and the ship rocks. That has to be the wall being blasted that we landed by.

  The umbilicals disengage and flop loosely. Everyone’s armour is so shiny and new-looking. We look like we are all eight feet tall. Two of the nearer doors pop open, hitting the ground outside with a clang, and we lead off, heading out. My rifle comes up to my shoulder and I am panning back and forth. I’m third out our door, so dead in the middle.

  I don’t know the people I am with, so I’m glad that the weapons don’t go live till we are on the ramp. I had a guy go nuts and go directly to automatic right after we landed once. We restarted and then shot him in-game so he got to sit it all out.

  My weapon is up and the ground crunches under my feet. I can feel the grit and heat from the gravel we are on. The four acting as our over-watch are covering the arcs from the lander to the wall. The rest of us have to make it to that wall and in so that the rest of the section can collapse inward toward us. The wall is maybe thirty meters away and is mostly rubble on this side.

  I take off at a run. The wall is throwing a lot of heat off and I can feel a bit of it. I can also see that while the wall is down, it’s all rubble and spread all over, so I am going to have to climb. I can hear slow firing behind me from the troops and the shriek of a missile launching at something that the AI controlling the lander has detected but not engaged.

  I don’t care; I’m breaching this damn building and taking the objective. These new missions tend to separate the sections more than they used to.

  I bound up the rubble and start taking fire. My instincts are screaming at me to get down as I see the ionizing of whatever the atmosphere is as a laser shot zips across the front of my helmet, just missing me thanks to a stumble on the wall. That blast was so real. I hear shots coming from both sides and leave the worrying to the guys on the flanks.

  I have to move faster. The armour specs mean I should be able to move almost twice as fast as this, and that’s going to make me harder to hit. I’m struggling for breath, but it’s okay; I got this and I can do it. I spring over the top of the wall and I notice I am way too far ahead of the other guys in the section.

  I realize I’m screwed just before I pass the high point, so there is only one thing to do. I empty my grenade launcher from the hip in a wobbly pattern in front of me. The grenades go off and shrapnel and other bits of wreckage are flying away, but that’s not my problem. The guards that go down are blown to bits, but there are still at least seven robots there.

  Damn it, the weird heads and the weapons and the armour. Those look EXACTLY like the invasion robots. I know they want to kill me, but it doesn’t matter.

  They are old tech now. They are at least partly lagging because of the big explosions. They are going to be faster to react than a living being would be, but they need to reset and I caught them with the grenades. I took one’s arm off, but the rest are starting to reset already. The weapon arms are all coming up. They fire slower than a battery-powered laser, but they can fire over a dozen shots before they need to recharge.

  I bring the weapon up and put my first round into the chest of the one facing me at a distance of maybe twenty feet. The shot goes right through and it flips backward, hitting the ground. I track on the next one over from him and put a round into its chest. I keep firing single rounds and hit, knocking most of them down. The rest of the section has caught up and starts shooting down the threats that are farther away.

  I know that two of them are going to peel off and stay in the rubble, taking down threats that are coming along the inside wall so nothing can come in behind us.

  Some of the robots I shot start sitting up. Their eye receptors are yellow and lit-up. I hadn’t hit any critical mechanical system.

  Power receivers, processors, antenna that receives orders from command models—all that stuff is located in the chest. I put another round in the chest and then again for the one that kept moving around.

  They are all down finally and not moving. I make it to the building just ahead of me and reload. The rest of the team moves up and covers while our engineer troop applies the explosives to the wall in a large circle.

  I can hear all sorts of radio chatter on two different nets. The section net is full of grunting and everyone cursing or whatever they do when they are flying on adrenaline. The other net, from the lander, is full of target data that I can’t do anything about it, but it worries me. The military had a pat
rol out with heavy armour, which the lander took out. The ready fighters that had launched had been blown out of the sky. But most of the heavy munitions were used up and the enemy was sending in dozens of fighters from a main base, and there was a ready response team of some sort deploying out of the base.

  We have minutes.

  The team we had left behind signals for the other lander to be deployed and our AI lander concurs.

  Great. A new pickup point.

  The engineer signals and we all turn and lean away from the charge and it blows.

  The shock wave is big and I can feel myself being rattled around. I spin and start moving forward as I’m at point. I stop in awe.

  The wall is still blowing out and I can see every particle of whatever concrete mix they used. I can focus on individual pieces. The dust cloud is huge and pushing out like a sideways mushroom cloud. I can even hear the rattling of the shrapnel like hail on my armour.